British journalist, Simon Jenkins, in the latest issue of the Spectator – published on March 11 – offers this no doubt enduring testament to the importance of timing:
“Nothing to fear but fear itself:
Simon Jenkins says that Tony Blair’s Sedgefield speech was just another attempt by the Prime Minister to scare us into believing that we are all in mortal danger. We are not ”
Somewhat mystifyingly, he goes on to offer a George Michael critique of Blair’s intellect :
“The singer George Michael spoke in last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph of attending the Blairs’ celebrity dinner in their home in 1997. He came away disconcerted, he said, both because of the amount of religion talked and because Mr Blair ‘did not seem the smartest man at the table’.
George Michael?
fear:
I agree with him, the rate of terrorist attack has not significantly raised the chance of any one idividual being in danger, at 120k deaths a year from non-terrorist causes, you would have to have quite alot of terrorist activities to make a significant affect on death rates.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone, as the word implies, terrorism’s intent is to cause terror (or in this case fear), not to reduce populations.
George Michael:
You don’t need to be smart yourself to tell if someone else is smart, OTOH we don’t know who else was sitting at the table, maybe it was Stephen Hawking? From the context it is set in, it seems to be a statement about Blair, but in the original context it maybe more about the other participants of the table rather than Blair.
[1] http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3110129.NSF/0/B7F736DAD59C04A7CA2569B50000CD09?Open
128,102 deaths in Australia in 1999
Did he wake up before he goed goed?
C’mon Geoff – anyone who can write the lyrics to Wake me up before you go go is obviously an intellectual.
“C’mon Geoff – anyone who can write the lyrics to Wake me up before you go go is obviously an intellectual.”
Perhaps Jim, but someone last heard of soliciting hot sex fun from an undercover cop in a toilet in L.A. is always going to risk being less than totally persuasive in his analysis of ‘who’s got the smarts,’ I fear. .
It was a weird moment. I was left wondering why the Blairs invited him in the first place. Almost as odd as the moment with Andrew Denton when I realised that Parky is bad interview talent. He got better but he did rant something awful about not very much..
“It was a weird moment. I was left wondering why the Blairs invited him in the first place”
Ditto. Then I thought, Carole Caplin and Foster…
somehow, it all fitted after that.
“Almost as odd as the moment with Andrew Denton when I realised that Parky is bad interview talent.”
True, but not as bad as Lisa Marie Presley. I can’t see Andrew’s show lasting much longer somehow. He’s just about exhausted the market in dodgy businessmen willing to submit themselves to soft interviews full of warm fuzzy questions where they can successfully masquerade as crooks with hearts of gold. then again, he hasn’t done John Elliott yet, has he?
Yep, he has.
http://www.abc.net.au/enoughrope/stories/s827222.htm
well, I happen to like George (I am an Eighties chick, after all). His heart’s in the right place. I even read somewhere the other day that he’s said that, after his current album, he wants to distribute all his future music over the internet for free.
well, I happen to like George (I am an Eighties chick, after all). His heart’s in the right place. I even read somewhere the other day that he’s said that, after his current album, he wants to distribute all his future music over the internet for free.
“he wants to distribute all his future music over the internet for free.”
I assume this is for the same reason that New Idea is mainly found at unattended laundromats.
On the importance of timing.
You post-moral types chat about Blair & George as if it mattered.
Jenkins’ piece, dated March 11th, claimed we had nothing to fear (in cosy Europe) but fear itself.
That same day in Madrid, 191 people are bombed out of existence, and almost 2,000 are injured. Let’s hope none of their close friends or relatives come across the article.